His Nightmare Reality
by C0LL1S10N
Summary: Daryl scanned the ransacked shelves quickly, his eyes picking out the useful items with the ease of long practice. The whole store was practically picked clean, but...
1. Days Gone Bye

Daryl scanned the ransacked shelves quickly, his eyes picking out the useful items with the ease of long practice. The whole store was picked practically clean, but there was enough left to keep this visit from being a total waste of time. He shuffled toothpaste, soap, gum, and assorted junk food indiscriminately into his bag, until he came across a few beaten-up packs of beef jerky. Merle loved beef jerky. Problem was, the packs were spattered with some long-gone walker's dried blood. Daryl tried to imagine taking it back to camp. That damn woman Lori would probably bitch his ear straight off the side of his head. Well, that was a good enough reason for him. He wrapped them in some plastic and stuffed it in his bag, which by that point was pretty much full.

He passed the cash register on his way out. The owner was sitting there with a friendly grin, as friendly as a bare skull could manage anyway. With a brief surge of contempt, Daryl noticed the gun clasped in the skeletal fingers and the mural of blood, brains, and bone shards the man had painted on the wall behind him with his final act. Another coward who chose to go down with the world.

"Thanks for the goods, you fucking pansy," Daryl muttered as he pushed through the cracked glass door, pocketing the dead man's firearm for good measure.

He checked the area one last time for walkers, planning to take his leave of the sorry place. It was a gas station, and he'd originally been attracted by the prospect of fuel, but the tanks had already been sucked drier than high noon on a summer day. Looked like they'd be siphoning their gas from abandoned cars again. Not exactly safe, but it was their only option.

Scuffling to the right. The back of Daryl's neck prickled, adrenaline clenching his stomach tightly in its fist. He crouched for cover behind the nearest car, silently cocking his crossbow. Then he peered up through the windshields, hoping to get a count of how many he was up against.

_Crunch. Crunch. _The walker's footsteps on gravel reached him before it did, coming into his view from behind a red Suburban. His first thought was that its feet were awfully small.

His second thought was, _There is no way I can do this._

She looked like Marcie. Obviously, the resemblance wasn't strong; this walker had been dead awhile, and half its jaw had been blown off by some idiot who hadn't had the skill, or more likely the sense, to aim for the brain. But enough was left for Daryl to determine the eye color, which was blue. Like Marcie's...had been.

It was very thin, not seeming to have fed recently, with streaks of gore in hair that could have been blond. It wore a tattered children's nightdress and flimsy bedroom slippers that were filthy and gray. As Daryl watched silently, the little girl, the walker went still as well, turning its head from side to side like a dog catching the scent of prey. Shit. He must be upwind. He had to shoot her. Now.

Instead, Daryl slipped his crossbow over his shoulder. He melted into the shadow of the surrounding woods.

_I'm sorry I couldn't save you_.

Night came on slowly in the Georgian summer woods, the light fading slowly enough to give Daryl the excuse he needed to keep moving. Eventually, he tripped over an exposed root and realized that unless he wanted to spend the night on the ground, sleeping with the walkers, he'd better set up camp.

Daryl reluctantly forced his legs to stop moving forward. They ached from the eight or so hours he had been traveling, uninterrupted aside from a short water break. He pressed his palm against the rough side of a tree, glad of the support, before pulling out a ragged but clean cloth and mopping the sweat from his forehead and neck. He knew he shouldn't have pushed himself like this. Running had probably scared away some game, and he was going to sleep too deeply tonight. But for some reason, he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that the little-girl walker from the gas station was following. Still couldn't. He discovered that he was afraid to look back the way he had come.

_This is so fuckin' stupid_. If Merle were here, he would probably give Daryl a good beating to restore him to his senses. He would also probably tell Daryl that he was a worthless piece of shit, as usual. Or would he? Merle had loved Marcie too. But, as Merle often put it, he wasn't "damned soft in the head." No doubt, he'd have blown that walker to hell without a second thought. And he'd have been right to do it, too. Put the little girl out of her torment.

Daryl punched the tree. It made his knuckles bleed, but the pain felt good, chasing his dark thoughts into a less prominent place in his mind. He took two small knives from his pack, then examined the surrounding trees. Several had the soft yet rough bark that he required, but only one was tall enough to offer any kind of concealment or protection. He stuck one knife in, testing its strength; it was firm, it would hold. Using the knives, he scaled the tree quickly and hunkered down on the most comfortable branch that could bear his weight. He hung his crossbow carefully on a branch. Then he strung up the brace of squirrels he had shot before encountering the gas station, grimacing at the slight but unmistakable stench of decomposition. Dead things did not fare well in the southern heat, a fact to which the walkers could heartily attest. He'd have to return to camp soon. Or he could just eat them himself. There were always more squirrels. In fact, with no cars to run them over and no humans to cut down their homes, they were everywhere.

He lay there for a couple seconds, relaxing his muscles. He wished he had some ice to rub them with so they wouldn't be so sore in the morning. Then he remembered that there was no ice anymore, except maybe in fucking Antarctica. That was a depressing thought. The best he could do was to prop his legs up to try and drain the lactic acid faster.

His stomach suddenly contracted, complaining with a loud groan. Jesus! He pressed down on his midriff, trying to silence the noise; he didn't need any nearby walkers thinking that was some kind of signal. He shouldn't have gone so long without eating, either. _Today, I did a lot of things I shouldn't have, but the one thing I should have done, I didn't._ He smiled painfully at the thought. _I'm such a fuckin' rebel._

Daryl dug around in his pack with one hand until he encountered something shaped like a can. He pulled it out. Spaghetti. Not the best, but not the worst either. He rooted around in the front pocket until he found his fork. It was plastic, and hadn't held up well under its extensive use. Dirt had somehow collected in the many scratches on its surfaces since morning, the last time he'd used it. He'd be damned if he was going to waste his water on a fork though. He rubbed it a few times with his shirt, then simply sucked the dirt off and spit it out. Good as… well, not new, but it was clean enough for him.

Some pathetic, round, brown things were huddled on the surface of the spaghetti when Daryl pried the can open. He guessed they were meatballs. Honestly, he didn't want to eat them, but food was food. By the time his stomach was taken care of, the moon had risen high, and he could just glimpse her shape through the leaves. He still felt keyed-up and kind of jittery – he kept thinking he could hear something moving below – but he tied himself down anyway, hoping his brain would get that he was trying to sleep and shut itself up.

He stared up at the moon, waiting for her to take pity on him, and blur his reality to oblivion.


	2. Guts

_Is this a good idea?_

**_I really don't give a damn_.**

Daryl had been having this silent exchange with himself for the past twenty minutes.

_Linda doesn't want you near her_.

**_Yeah well, Marcie does, so tough luck for Linda_.**

_Marcie is seven. Do you think she knows what she wants?_

Daryl made himself park and get out of the truck. Once he was outside, breathing the fresh spring air, the decision was a whole lot easier.

"She's my goddamn niece," he muttered. "I can see her if I feel like it."

He leaned back against his truck, fighting the urge to retrieve a cigarette or two from the pack in the glove compartment. Smoking right in front of a damn elementary school, he'd probably get arrested or some such damn thing. He was just so nervous. He hadn't seen Marcie in practically a month; Linda kept her under 24 fuckin' 7 surveillance, tracking her whereabouts every other second. Would Marcie even remember him? Kids had awfully short memories, didn't they? Maybe Linda had turned her against him. Maybe she wouldn't even want a ride home from the likes of him.

The ancient school bell rang and kids started streaming out of the worn oak doors, just as Daryl himself had done nearly 30 years ago. Christ. Where had those years gone? They didn't filter into a scrapbook of separate events for Daryl; they clouded into a hazy miasma that smelled strongly of alcohol and illegal drugs. The clearest memory he had was of dropping out of high school sophomore year, when his deadbeat dad - drunk and high out of his mind - fatally shot their mother and got his ass carted to prison for life. Merle took one look at the family situation and bolted for the army. Daryl had nearly resigned himself to sleeping under his neighbor's trailer when this blonde woman, teetering in five-inch heels and perky as hell, introduced herself as Aunt Cheryl and offered Daryl a home. He'd never even seen her before, but figured he owed her and resolved to play nice.

That lasted all of about two hours. Daryl had always prided himself on his refusal to complain no matter what the circumstance, but God, how he hated his new family. Always forcing him to change his clothes, pestering him to go back to school. They fancied themselves "middle class," which, near as Daryl could figure, meant they dressed nicely, had more food and didn't backhand a woman when she said something stupid, which was a serious mistake when it came to Aunt Cheryl. Daryl had thought she took him in out of charitable kindness, or that maybe she felt she owed it to her dead sister, but it turned out all she wanted was to get in his pants. "My, Daryl, don't you look handsome today." "Daryl, honey, you think you could help me zip up this here dress?" Once, she cornered him in the pantry and shoved her hand down his jeans. Ten seconds later she was out with a marmalade jar in that same hand, smiling at her husband as though nothing had happened.

Daryl stayed in the pantry. He knew what had just transpired was very, very wrong, but at the same time he couldn't stop thinking about how her hand felt, wrapped around him like that. And Cheryl... _Aunt_ Cheryl was not unattractive. What was she, late twenties? He'd put her at 35, tops. It wasn't as though her husband used her the way Daryl personally thought a woman of her cup size should be used. For God's sake, the man hadn't even glanced up from his newspaper when she almost spilled out of that strapless top bringing him the marmalade. No harm in giving the woman what she wanted, right?

_Right,_ Daryl reminded himself roughly,_ it's all fun and games 'till you get her knocked up with a two-headed retard baby. Your best plan yet, Daryl. Why don't you just sit here until blood starts flowing back to your brain again._

Later that week he was sitting alone in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do with himself with the aid of Uncle Barry's newspaper. It was depressing to see how many jobs he couldn't get without a high school diploma; hell, he wasn't sure "molecular geneticist" was even English. Looked like his future was headed toward the glamorous life that was construction work. Daryl made a careful note of the contact number - he had a sharp memory, though he hadn't bothered to employ it once during his ten years of public schooling - and stood up, stretching his cramped arms over his head. He was feeling relaxed for the first time since his arrival in this fucking weird household, enough that he might actually be able to enjoy smoking the pot hidden behind one of the picture frames hanging in his assigned quarters, the basement. Something told Daryl that Barry would take umbrage if he knew weed was being smoked illegally in his house; perhaps it was the way the man always walked like he had a two-foot pole up his ass. Barry and Cheryl didn't go into the basement though, so as long as he didn't show up high to dinner, he should be okay.

Tinkling strains of a piano being pounded at the high end reminded him otherwise. "Shit," Daryl mumbled. He'd forgotten about Linda, the slut Barry and Cheryl affectionately called their daughter. She was a year younger than Daryl, and he'd only been living here for a week, yet he'd counted no less than four different guys sneaking past the basement window on their way to Linda's. At this rate, she'd end up with AIDS before she was 25.

Sometimes she came down to the basement, ostensibly to get help on her homework – yes, because Daryl was really the right person for that job - when her actual goal was to flirt with him like a bitch in heat. Despite her pretensions of affection, Daryl knew that if she caught him doing anything, anything at all, she'd run and tell Daddy in zero seconds flat. He'd heard her complaining to her friends on the phone about the "white trash contaminating the basement" often enough to be certain about that.

Well, she was obviously engaged in destroying the piano right now, so he had some time. He turned and almost ran straight into Cheryl.

"Daryl, honey!" she cooed. Her surprise was so well-faked that Daryl himself almost believed it. "I had no idea you were in here!"

Daryl shrugged. "I was just lookin' at the job listings in the paper."

"How _marvelous_..." Cheryl brushed past him, heading towards the oven. Daryl couldn't help following her with his eyes, which was probably how she planned it. "See anything you like?"

Daryl was well aware of the double entendre. "I'm thinkin' about going into construction."

"Nothing else catch your eye?"

Daryl forced himself to shrug equably, but the fuse on his temper was burning dangerously short. Not only was she cutting into valuable minutes he could have spent puffing on a joint, but her inability to drop the goddamn bone was really starting to piss him off. Why couldn't this woman just get the message already? Didn't she have better things to do than hanging around trying to fuck her underage nephew? "Ain't seen nothin' else better."

Cheryl gave him a bright smile. Good lord, he hoped she hadn't taken that as a compliment. "Well, I'm always here if you want to talk."

"I don't." It was the boldest thing he dared say without running the risk of getting thrown back out on the streets. He left, feeling her gaze on the back of his neck.

Daryl started the construction job. It kept him away from the house and its occupants most of the day, which was just fine by him, although Cheryl still managed to corner him from time to time. He got promoted to manager in less than two years, mainly because he worked hard, didn't require detailed instructions for simple tasks, didn't ask stupid questions, and didn't set any accidental fires by forgetting to put out his smokes. It was hard to believe that his fellow construction workers could still breathe with their heads that far up their asses.

The promotion came with a pay raise large enough that he could finally move out of his aunt and uncle's home. Daryl found an apartment on the other side of town, nicer than what he should have been able to afford, except that the landlord cut him a deal because Daryl promised to handle all the building repairs. Merle had sent him some money too, which helped.

Once his new living arrangements were settled, Daryl told Cheryl and Barry the good news. Cheryl was in the middle of painting her toenails bright red. When the words "I'm leaving" came out of Daryl's mouth, her hand flinched so violently that polish spurted everywhere, giving the disconcerting impression that her toe was freshly amputated.

"What?" she demanded.

Barry was absorbed in the game. "Come on...come on...yeah, touchdown!" He noticed Daryl for the first time, then his wife. "Christ, Cheryl, what the fuck happened to your foot?"

"Daryl 's leaving!" Cheryl cried.

"Leaving?" Barry seemed nonplussed.

"Moving out," Daryl clarified.

"Oh." Barry stared at the seventeen-year-old boy who had lived in the bottom level of his house for the past two years. "Well... Good for you, kid. Visit sometime."

Cheryl grabbed Daryl by the arm. He was forced to walk backwards as he was propelled into the kitchen. Jesus, that woman had a grip like iron. When she finally released his arm, Daryl began, "Look, Cheryl, we both knew this was going to happen eventu..."

"Shut up!" She slapped him across the face. Hard. "I can't believe you could do this to me! Didn't I feed and clothe you for the past two fucking years? Where's your fucking sense of loyalty?"

Anger surged red-hot in Daryl's veins, and this time he didn't have to hold back what he really wanted to say. "You know, all I heard out of that pile of shit was 'fucking.' You got the most goddamn single-track mind I ever seen, you know that? Two years, and you still can't take a hint. I didn't sleep with you when I was fifteen and I sure as hell don't know what makes you think I'm gonna start now. Here's what goin' down: I'm gonna leave. You're not gonna stop me. You're not gonna follow me. And I'm gonna forget your whole sorry family exists. You got all that?"

Daryl stalked toward the door, fully intending to leave without another word.

"It would have been wonderful," she whispered.

He paused, reluctantly, his hand on the door. "What?" he said finally. "What would have been?"

"Us. Cheryl and Daryl Dixon. Don't that have a nice ring to it?" He heard her laugh faintly. "Now go on!" she snapped suddenly. "Get out of my house!"

And he obeyed.

Gentle fingers of sunlight probed their way past the ceiling of leaves above Daryl's head and probed him until he surfaced from sleep. For a moment, he hesitated to move – he knew he had been dreaming about something, and wanted to remember what it was. But the fragments of dream fled before him, slipping through his grasp like quicksilver, and he was left with nothing but the mental image of a giant toy shovel and a vague sense of anticipation.

Daryl rubbed his face thoughtfully. Must have been one weird-ass dream.


	3. Tell It To The Frogs :: Part 1

Daryl's breakfast consisted of a single hard-boiled egg. His appetite seemed to have taken a leave of absence, although the soreness he had anticipated yesterday arrived right on schedule. Stiffly, Daryl packed up and hit the ground. After he was satisfied that the area was clear of walkers, he proceeded to push his body through a painful but necessary stretching routine.

While a slow fire burned in his left hamstring, Daryl pondered his options. He'd been hunting for four days now. The squirrels strapped to his belt were approaching expiration date, and it was dangerous to be carrying around meat that smelled too strongly. Anything could have happened back at camp, too. He didn't trust that damn bastard Shane to shine his shoes, let alone responsibly guard the welfare of other people, and Merle was the type to look out for his own interests first: with the safety of the camp in their hands, Daryl would be surprised if somebody hadn't died by now.

There was a disturbance somewhere north of his location. Daryl grabbed his trusty crossbow, retrieved his pack from the ground, and made silently towards the sound. It was too quiet to be a walker; they were loud, clumsy and half the time you could smell them coming, whereas this soft rustling could have been attributed to the wind gently blowing through the trees. Daryl brushed aside a curtain of leaves.

"Oh, hell yeah," he whispered, breaking into a grin. An entire herd of deer was grazing with their heads lowered in the clearing within, beautiful fat deer with sleek coats and shining eyes. Daryl saw venison. He did some quick mental calculations: with a hunter's practiced eye, he'd already picked out his target, but killing her now would be impractical, as he would only have to carry her body the ten-plus miles back to camp. He decided to tag her, which would both slow her down and provide him a blood trail, as he herded her in the direction he needed to go.

_Thunk. _Daryl's arrow sped through the clearing in a blur and buried itself in the hind flank of a plump young doe that was nibbling delicately at the sparse grass. Her head shot up and she pranced in pain, as every other member instantly went still, sensing danger. But they hadn't seen a human in months, and they had forgotten fear.

Daryl provided them with a timely reminder as his second arrow drove in, inches from the first. The herd bolted, and the injured doe lamely attempted to follow.

"Sorry, darlin'," Daryl said, stepping out from behind the foliage. "You ain't as lucky as your friends." He moved towards the frightened doe; she turned tail and ran in the opposite direction, southwest, towards the camp. Daryl trailed her. His muscles sang out in pain as he pushed himself to full speed, running as lightly as a deer himself.

Life settled into a predictable, if lonely routine for Daryl. He liked it that way; nobody could hurt him by leaving if they never got close in the first place. He met girls, but their flirtatious affectations always reminded him creepily of Aunt Cheryl, and he blew off dates more often than not. Aside from Merle, the only other people in his life he actually liked were his drinking buddies. He wasn't about to trust them with any deep secrets, but they were decent guys, good for watching football and helping Daryl drink his way through a few six-packs.

To his surprise, Linda's wedding invitation turned up in his mail. He put it out with the rest of his trash, sparing a moment of pity for the poor sucker she had coerced into marriage.

One night, he stumbled into his apartment extremely late, having been tied up dealing with the incompetency of his men. He was frustrated and tired and his sole desire was to get so shit-faced drunk that he would either forget about his day or pass out cold. Both, if he could manage it. Daryl turned the TV on to a Uruguay-Argentina soccer game and uncapped a bottle with his teeth. He had just set it against his lips when his phone rang.

"What up, bro," Daryl drawled lazily into the phone, expecting Merle. His brother sometimes called to check up on and verbally abuse him.

"Hi, Daryl!" a perky voice exclaimed.

The fuck? Daryl mentally ran through a list of his female acquaintances, none of whom would be calling him at this hour. "Who the hell's this?"

"Daryl, don't you dare tell me you don't recognize my voice. We lived together for two whole years!"

Daryl's brows knit in consternation. Good lord… "Aunt Cheryl?"

"Ugh, no! Think the young and attractive Marks woman, not the decrepit one who smells funny."

"Sorry. You kinda sound like your mom now," Daryl said absently. Argentina had the ball.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. For such a cutie, you're incredibly clueless about talking to girls."

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that either, cousin."

"You always were a wet blanket." She gave a tinkering little laugh. "So anyway, how've you been?"

"Like you give a damn." Daryl didn't have the patience to play Linda's mind games tonight. "Look, I know you didn't call me up to chat. How 'bout you just tell me what you want, and then I can hang up the phone."

"So direct! It's refreshing. Okay, Daryl, we'll do things your way." His aggression didn't seem to dishearten her; if anything, Linda sounded even more enthused. "Okay, so guess what? I'm going to be a mother!"

"That's nice, Linda. Congratu-fuckin-lations." On the screen, Argentina scored. The shooter pulled his shirt over his head and sprinted a victory lap, flanked by his team. "Even the Mexicans are celebratin' for ya."

"Come again?"

"Nothin'. You got anythin' else to say?"

"Actually, yeah. How would you like to grace us with your presence at the baby shower?"

Daryl burst out laughing. "You gotta be fucking me!"

"Once again, I remind you of which Marks woman you're talking to. Can I take that as a yes?"

"No, you damn well cannot. Ain't no way I'm goin' to some pansy-ass baby shower."

"Oh come on."

"I said no!"

There was a short pause. "Think you'll change your mind?"

She really was her mother's daughter, persistent as a goddamn bulldog. "A snowball's chance in hell, darlin'."

"Shame." She sounded sincerely regretful. "Well, if the snowball ends up pulling through, you know where we live. Saturday the 28th, okay? Bye, Daryl!"

She hung up fast. Always did insist on having the last word.

Daryl had been following the spots of blood for about two hours now. His internal compass told him he was nearing camp. Couldn't be more than a mile away; time to finish off the job, or else they might overshoot. It was impossible to draw his crossbow while running, but he wasn't overly concerned about that. He wasn't the only one who was getting tired. From time to time, he caught glimpses of a white tail flashing between the trees, evidence of the doe's flagging strength. Eventually, she'd slow down enough to give him time to fire.

The chance came when the doe finally shuddered to a stop in the midst of a small clearing, her whole body heaving and glistening with the sheen of sweat. Blood had leaked from the arrow wounds, staining the surrounding hair darkly brown, and her back right leg trembled uncontrollably, obviously unable to bear weight. Daryl lined up the final shot.

_Whoosh_. He blinked, momentarily unable to comprehend what he was seeing. An arrow had buried itself in the doe's neck, pierced the heart. She swayed. Fell. All typical stuff, except he hadn't actually pulled the trigger. Had someone from the group decided to try their hand at hunting and happened to stumble across him? He hadn't seen one person among them so far who could handle a bow with any degree of accuracy, except maybe Lori's little boy, and she would never have let him out this far. Daryl concealed himself among the forest growth, waiting for the mystery archer to show himself.

A figure shortly separated from the cluster of trees to Daryl's right. It had a recurve archery bow slung over one shoulder, a pack over the other, and wore a forest camouflage jacket that blended well with the surroundings. It was also a girl. Daryl watched as she strode purposefully toward the fallen deer before suddenly seeming to notice his arrows.

She stood frozen for a second. Then, unexpectedly, she called out, "Who's there?"

After a moment's surprised consideration, Daryl stepped out of the shadows, putting himself between this unlikely stranger and his prey. "Thanks for the help, kid," he drawled. "But ain't it about time for you to run along home?"

The girl sized him up. "I'm the one that brought her down," she said, but her eyes strayed to the still-cocked crossbow.

"And I'm the one that tracked her across ten fuckin' miles." Daryl allowed a hint of his exasperation to surface. "Tagged her twice. If you knew anythin' about hunting, you'd know that gives me first claim."

The girl raised her chin, refusing to back off. "You lost your claim when you followed a _wounded deer_ for _ten miles_ and didn't even manage to kill her. I'm thinkin' you can't hunt for shit, old man."

Daryl leveled his crossbow in her direction. "You wanna find out?"

She looked thoughtful. Then she lunged forward and punched him in the face.

As he staggered back, more surprised than hurt, she yanked the crossbow from his grasp and darted away. "Little bitch!" Daryl swore. Wiping the blood from his nose, he shot off after her rapidly receding footsteps. She was fast as hell, but left an embarrassingly obvious trail of broken twigs and crushed leaves in her wake; evidently the concept of tracking wasn't one she was too familiar with, corroborating Daryl's guess that she was just a dumb kid who had survived so far with a combination of weapon skill and sheer luck. Daryl slowed as he approached a mud-covered tent pitched unobtrusively between two jutting rocks. He could hear someone moving around inside it.

"Bet you thought you got off clean," he called mockingly. "Think again, darlin'."

A low growl emanated from the tent.

Then a pale, pudgy hand tore through the entrance flap, ripping it to shreds, and a walker bigger than Daryl could have ever imagined emerged from the foul darkness – the devil himself crawling up from hell.

"Damn..." Daryl breathed.

The walker sighted Daryl. It gurgled disgustingly in the back of its throat and stretched arms like telephone poles toward him, hungering for flesh.


	4. Tell It To The Frogs :: Part 2

Daryl frantically threw his pack to one side and scanned his surroundings for a weapon. The best he could come up with was a fist-sized rock. Daryl wasn't sure how much damage he could do with a rock, but damn if he wasn't going to give it his best shot.

He pegged the rock like a baseball, with all the force he could muster. It spun through the air and smashed into the walker's head, gouging a deep wound that dripped thick, black blood. Completely ignoring the hit that would have given any living man a concussion, the walker snarled and lunged for Daryl. Its enormous size belied surprising speed; only his own quick reflexes saved him from a deadly embrace. He rolled under its outstretched arms, grabbed the rock, and landed a heavy blow on the back of its skull.

Its head caved in halfway under the pressure. The skin split like an overripe melon. Daryl steeled himself for another attack, but the walker abruptly stopped, its pulpy head snapping back with the force of a knife handle that suddenly bloomed between its eyes. It tottered several slow steps, burning eyes still fixed on Daryl - unconsciously, he pressed into the tree behind him - finally, it crumpled thunderously to the forest floor, a slain elephant.

Daryl hurled the rock, now slippery with blood, at the corpse. "You gonna make a habit of stealin' my kills?" he demanded. "'Cause it's getting real old _real _fast, darlin'."

A pair of bright eyes peeked out at him from behind a tree. "Hey, how about a little gratitude? I just saved your life, you know."

"My life wouldn't of needed no savin' if you hadn't stole my crossbow _and_ sicced that huge-ass son of a bitch on me!"

Seeming utterly unabashed at being caught out, the girl sidled into view, a half smirk on her lips. "Ah, why quibble over details?" She knelt and twisted the knife from the walker's forehead, cleaning it with a stained cloth that seemed to be dedicated exclusively to this purpose. "You're not dead, I got to kill something, everybody's happy."

Daryl couldn't believe this kid. "Happy? I'm supposed to be happy with your dumb ass?" He wrenched his crossbow brutally from the girl's hands; she gave a brief yelp of pain, giving him a reproachful look. "I don't ever wanna see you around here again. Get lost, kid." He pushed past her, fuming.

Of course, she followed. "What about the deer?"

"Forget about the deer."

"Try telling that to my stomach. It's not forgetting about the deer anytime soon."

She did look hungry. Even though she still had a a vestige of childish roundness about her face, her cheekbones were too prominent, and her wrist bones jutted out like knobs.

"I know," she went on blithely, as if she'd had a sudden burst of inspiration, "why don't we, say, stick together? Then we can all have dinner."

Daryl laughed. "Darlin', I already got myself a group. It's them I hunted that deer down for."

She halted, an honest look of surprise on her face. "No kidding? _You_ have a group?"

"That's what I said. They're set up right over there. You need your ears cleaned out?"

"No, no." She hurried to catch up with him. "I just kinda figured you for a loner." She gave him a sidelong glance. "Like me."

"Well, clearly the whole lone wolf thing ain't doing you much good, cause you're practically starvin' to death." Daryl heaved an internal sigh before continuing. "Look, I'm just gonna come straight out and say it. You want in, you can join us. Personally, I don't give a damn, even if you are downright insufferable. But I'll warn you now, they won't stand for no cute little tricks like the one you pulled on me with that walker. You come with me, you better be able to take orders."

They had almost reached the clearing where the deer's body lay. Daryl could hear inexplicable thudding noises; good lord, what the fuck was going on now? He turned to the girl, who had stopped next to him. "OK," he said softly, "you just stick behind me and don't say nothing, all right? I'll handle shit from here."

"Actually, I ... I don't really play well with others," the girl interrupted, a slight smile touching her lips as though she was thinking of some private joke. She took one step back, then another. "In fact, I'm just gonna go."

Daryl stared at her incredulously. "No, retard, you're coming with me. Ain't nothin out there for you but walkers and starvation." He motioned impatiently. "C'mon, ain't nobody gonna hurt you. Well, I can't really guarantee anything about that fucker Shane, but..."

"Awww. Worried about me? You're such a sweetie," she laughed. Daryl's mind stuttered in surprise, but she went on as if it had been a perfectly normal thing for a teenager to say to a 30-year-old. "It's okay. You saw me kill; you know I can handle myself. Just forget you ever saw me, 'kay?"

She turned around and began walking back the way she'd come, towards the tent and the enormous walker corpse.

What the hell? Teenage girls never did make sense to him. Daryl hoped she didn't expect him to go after her, because he didn't have time for this babysitting shit. He loaded his crossbow and carefully picked his way into the clearing.

_Whoa_. Daryl had to repress the urge to instinctively raise his crossbow, because it seemed like every able-bodied man in the group was standing there armed and staring at him like they were planning to gut him right then and there. Merle wasn't there, but they'd picked up a new guy, a tall, skinny fellow with a long, unshaven face and light eyes. Though he was new, everyone seemed to naturally gravitate toward him, the way soldiers look to their commanders. Daryl sized him up briefly; he'd have to find time to make clear to this man that he answered to no one but himself.

Daryl's gaze moved to the ground. "Son of a bitch!" he exclaimed unconsciously. "That's my deer!" The deer, his beautiful deer, lay in a tangle of blood and tendons, neck chewed wide open, presumably by the walker whose headless corpse sprawled beside it. This was all that damn girl's fault! "Look at it, all gnawed on by this..." Anger pumping through him like an electric current, Daryl smashed his foot into the walker's corpse. "Filthy-" again - "disease-bearing-" the ribs broke like porcelain - "motherless, poxy bastard!" He had almost crushed its entire torso to a pulp when the old man, who was clutching a bloody axe, muttered, "Calm down son, that's not helping."

His interruption drew Daryl's rage like a lightning rod. "What do you know about it, old man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to _On_ _Golden Pond_?" He glanced at the deer again, its dead eyes, the mess of a neck, and heaved a sigh of frustration. "Been tracking this deer for miles... was gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison..." The two blonde sisters watched him with wide eyes. Partly to disgust them further, Daryl unsheathed his knife and went on, "What do you think? Think we can cut around this chewed-up part right here?"

The younger one gave a muffled squeak, while the older one simply gave him a revolted look.

"I would not risk that," Shane said, butting in as usual.

Daryl resisted the urge to tell him what he could do with his opinions. "That's a damn shame." If these people were going to be all picky about it, he and Merle could just come back for it later. He collected his two arrows, as well as the one the girl had fired. He figured she owed him at least that much. "Well, I got us some squirrel. Bout a dozen or so. That'll have to do." He looked around, but no one challenged his statement.

As he started back towards camp, a movement by his foot caught his eye. The walker's head had reanimated. Seeing him, it clacked its teeth, straining toward his ankle.

"Oh God," one of the sisters said. If she had looked squeamish earlier, it was nothing compared to how she looked now. Daryl sincerely believed she was going to hurl.

"Come on people, what the hell?" Casually, he sent his bolt hurtling through the damn thing's eye. "It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing?" The general incompetency of these people regarding their own survival still managed to astound him. The new guy, the tall one, looked like he wanted to say something, but Daryl pushed past him and he remained silent. Good.

He walked into camp. "Merle!" His brother was usually to be found in front of the rickety trailer they shared, cleaning one of his guns or something, but today the faded lawn chair was empty. "Merle! Get your ass out here!" He'd probably gotten wrecked last night and was still inside sleeping it off. "Got us some squirrel!"

"Daryl?" It was Shane. God, what did he want now? "Slow up a bit, I gotta talk to ya."

"Bout what?"

Shane looked shifty for some reason. "Bout Merle. There was a... problem in Atlanta."

What the fuck was Merle doing in Atlanta? The Chinese kid was the only one who went out there, and Merle would've turned back from the gates of heaven if going in meant going with him. Unless he'd run out of alcohol.

Everyone had gathered around. He could sense a charged anticipation, like they were expecting some kind of show. That pissed him off. Merle and I keep these damn people from starving, and they think it's funny that my brother is..."Dead?"

Infuriatingly, Shane answered, "I'm not sure."

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl yelled, anger overcoming prudence.

"Look, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it," the new guy interrupted from behind him. He came forward, looking exhausted, but Daryl still got the feeling he wasn't someone to be crossed lightly. Fuck that. "Who're you?" he spat.

"Rick Grimes." He said it like Daryl was supposed to fall to his knees and start worshipping him.

"Rick Grimes," Daryl repeated mockingly. "You got something you wanna tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all," the stranger said. To his credit, he kept staring Daryl straight in the eye. "So I handcuffed him to a roof. Hooked him to a piece of metal."

The man said it with such a straight face, Daryl felt the crazy urge to burst out laughing. He wiped sweat from his eye. "Hold on," he said sarcastically. "Let me process this. You're telling me you handcuffed my brother to a roof? And," his voice rose uncontrollably, "you _left him there_?"

"...yeah," the guy admitted.

Senseless rage blew Daryl's mind. He watched himself rip off the belt of squirrels and toss it aside. His arms lunged for the stranger's neck. Someone tackled him, knocking him to the ground, but no one tried to keep him there – idiots. He tore his gutting knife, its edge gleaming with a serrated smile, out of its sheath. He was going to cut the bastard's heartless eyes right out of his face.

He swung at the stranger, who nimbly dodged the wild attack. To his outrage, Shane came up behind him and forced him into a chokehold. He should have known they weren't going to fight fair. "You best let me go!" he roared, trying to twist out of Shane's grasp, but the man held on with a bearlike grip.

"Nope, I think it's better if I don't," Shane replied. The bastard was enjoying himself.

"Chokehold's illegal," Daryl protested, still struggling.

"File a complaint."

The man, Rick, knelt down and stared into Daryl's face. "I'd like to have a calm conversation on this topic," he said, as if he somehow thought this was a reasonable request to make of someone after he had just handcuffed their last relative to a roof surrounded by the living dead. "Think we can manage that?" He repeated the question when Daryl ignored him. "Think we can manage that?"

As if by some tacit agreement, Shane released him, shoving him roughly to the ground. As Daryl tried to recover his breath, Rick continued, "What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others." His words briefly reminded Daryl of the girl in the woods - she'd said the same thing, only about herself.

"It's not Rick's fault," interrupted the black guy. "I had the key." He cast his eyes down. "I dropped it."

Daryl looked at him with loathing. "You couldn't _pick it up_?"

"I dropped it in a drain," the guy retorted defensively.

_I can't believe this_. These people literally screwed up everything that was possible to screw up. "If that's supposed to make me feel better, it don't!"

"Well, maybe this will!" the black guy countered. "I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn't get at him. With a padlock."

"That's gotta count for something," Rick said softly. His eyes weren't cold, but almost sad. For some reason, that look cracked Daryl's anger like hot glass, as though this total stranger somehow understood Daryl's deep, primal fear that the last person on this earth who cared about him was dead.

"To hell with all y'all…" Daryl dragged his hand across his eyes, feeling tired. "Just...tell me where he is. So's I can go get him."

"He'll show you," one of the women said quietly. It was Lori, her dark eyes locked on Rick, full of an implicit challenge Daryl couldn't quite understand. "Isn't that right."

There was a long, awkward pause.

"I'm going back," Rick finally agreed.

Everyone burst into chatter at once, but Daryl walked away. He didn't want to look at any of them any more.

~0~0~0~

Sitting in the back, Daryl could feel the semi-truck's engine vibrating his bones. It gave him a rubbery feeling in his legs when he was back on the ground, which he shook off impatiently. He pushed through the chain-link fence that served as the boundary line of Atlanta, the others - Rick, the black guy, and the Chinaman - following behind.

"Be careful," someone whispered.

The Chinaman pointed out the building in hushed tones. Daryl scrutinized the roof edge. _Are you up there, Merle? _They entered the building without incident, picking off a few straggling walkers with ease. Daryl sprinted up the stairs. One of the guys cut the chain with a massive pair of pliers.

Daryl burst through the door. "Merle!" he screamed. "Merle! Where are you?"


	5. Vatos :: Part 1

For a moment, Daryl just stood there, trying to absorb the bloody scene. The steel handcuffs, tarnished with blood that looked like rust. The discarded hacksaw, its teeth equally rusty. Merle's hand, fingers curled like the petals of a red-speckled flower.

_What the hell, Merle? _Daryl wanted to yell. _Why couldn't you just have waited? You didn't have to cut off your damn hand! _He knew Merle wasn't exactly the type who sat around waiting to be rescued, but still, it hurt that Merle obviously hadn't thought Daryl would come back for him. Because it meant that if Daryl had been the one chained to this building, and Merle the one roaming free in the forest, his older brother would have sped away in a cloud of motorcycle smoke without a second glance.

Daryl swung his crossbow around at T-Dog, the one who'd dropped the damn key in the first place. That fat-assed bastard was going to pay for this. And Daryl wasn't planning on giving him a quick and easy death either; the arrow's tip was still coated in walker blood. The son of bitch was going to spend his last hours in desperate, feverish torture. And then he would rise again, and then Daryl would kill him. Thoroughly.

Something cold and metal pressed into his temple. Daryl's finger curled on the trigger.

"I won't hesitate," Rick whispered, his voice icy. "I don't care if every walker in the city hears it."

Daryl's jaws clenched so tightly that they went numb. Who the hell did the new guy think he was? The damn apocalypse had come and gone. There were no laws anymore; he had no right to put himself between Daryl and his revenge. _Rick Grimes,_ he said in his head, _I'm going to shoot this motherfucker and there's nothing your ass can do about it._

Except, a little voice of sanity reminded him, if he himself was dead, and T-Dog infected, there was no way Rick and the Chinaman would continue the search for Merle. Merle, who was out there right now, probably disoriented with pain, scattering a trail of blood like breadcrumbs for the walkers. The thought of his older brother, wandering confused through the damned city with a bleeding stump where his right hand used to be, finally dropped the crossbow to his side.

Rick eyed him warily for a few seconds, then lowered his gun as well.

"You got a do-rag or something'?" Daryl muttered to the black guy, who seemed surprised, even a little nervous at being directly addressed. Daryl couldn't quite bring himself to look at the man, but when the blue scrap of cloth was offered, he took it. Kneeling, he picked up Merle's hand and wrapped it up tenderly, like he was bandaging a wound. "Guess the saw blade was too dull for the handcuff. Ain't that a bitch," he murmured, as he motioned for Glenn to make space in his backpack. Glenn complied, though not without a look of revulsion. "He must've used a tourniquet, his belt maybe – much more blood if he didn't."

Whether or not he had used a tourniquet, Merle had left a distinct trail of blood that led along the roof to another door at the far end. _Bet you didn't padlock this one, did you, big boy_? Daryl thought as he shoved it open. "Merle?" he called, his voice echoing off the walls of the empty stairwell. "You in here?"

He nailed a walker missing half its jaw and impatiently wrenched his bolt from its head as he followed the drops onto a landing. The door to the next room stood ajar, and he could see a few prone bodies bleeding onto the floor. "Had enough in him to take out these two sumbitches one-handed," he remarked, admiring the sheer brutality of the blows that had smashed the walkers' heads to pieces. "Toughest asshole you ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer, he'd crap out nails."

Rick smiled slightly. "Yeah, his asshole is bound to be pretty tough if he forces nails out of it on a regular basis."

Daryl bit back a surprised laugh. It was the first trace of humor he'd seen from the guy; he had been beginning to think Rick was a robot whose only function was to stop people from doing what they wanted to do. "Damn straight," he agreed. Then he drew in deeply and yelled, "Merle!"

"Hey!" Rick said in a fierce undertone, grabbing him by the arm. "We're not the only ones here, remember?"

"Screw that," Daryl shot back, jerking free in annoyance. "He could be bleeding out, you said so yourself."

Rick opened his mouth to retort, but the Chinaman cut him off as he picked up what appeared to be a blackened flatiron from a gas stove that was, oddly enough, lit. "What's that burned…" His eyes widened as he realized the obvious. "…stuff?"

"Skin," Rick muttered, seeming impressed despite himself. "He cauterized the stump."

"Told you, he's tough," Daryl said, smirking. "No one can kill Merle, but Merle."

Rick frowned. "Don't take that on faith. He's lost a lot of blood."

Daryl scoffed inwardly. Since when had the amount of blood left in his body ever stopped a Dixon from doing anything he damn well pleased? Merle could get bled dry by a fuckin' chupacabra and still snap its sorry neck with one hand. His only hand, now. Something at the edge of Daryl's vision caught his attention. "Oh yeah?" he rejoined, pointing at the small room's only window, which had been shattered from the inside. "Still managed to bust out of this death trap."

"He left the building?" The Chinaman rushed to the window, sounding horrified. 'Why the hell would he do that?"

"The hell wouldn't he? He's out here alone, as far as he knows." Daryl stared out at the alley below, absently toying with the bloody rag Merle had left on the sill, like a final taunt to his little brother. _Catch me if you can_. "He's doin' what he has to… Surviving."

T-Dog burst out, "You call that surviving? Wandering the streets, maybe passing out? What are his odds out th-"

"No less than being handcuffed to a roof and left to rot by you sorry pricks!" Daryl snapped, and they at least had the grace to drop their gazes. He stepped closer to Rick, pushing into his space until the man finally looked him in the face. "_You_ couldn't kill him," Daryl said in a low, challenging voice. "I ain't so worried about some dumb dead bastard."

"What about a thousand dumb dead bastards?" Rick raised his eyebrows. "Different story?"

"Why don't you take a tally?" Daryl said sarcastically. "Do what you want. I'ma go get him." It was high time he split ways with this pathetic bunch. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he had actually thought they might be able to help him, but they had remained true to dimwitted form. Hell, he'd probably have found Merle by now if he hadn't had to deal with their incompetent bickering every step of the way.

He attempted to step away, but Rick's arm came up and forcefully pushed him back. "Hands off me!" Daryl spat. "You can't stop me!"

"Look, he's family. I get that," Rick said urgently. "I went through hell to find mine." What was he talking about? Daryl's mind flashed to the look Lori had given Rick back in camp, and he almost laughed out loud. _Just wait till Mister Tight-ass Cop here finds out that his darling wife's been less than faithful during his absence._

"I know how you feel," Rick continued when Daryl remained silent. _Doubtful_, Daryl thought, but let him finish. "He can't get far with that injury. We can help you look a few blocks around, but only if we keep a level head."

What was with this 'we' business? Did Rick actually think Daryl planned on sticking around now that Merle was gone? Poor guy was so self-deluded, he probably wouldn't even believe that Lori had cheated on him. Daryl could imagine their conversation:

LORI: Look, Rick, you're a nice fellow and all, but you make terrible decisions, and you're bossy, and frankly I'm getting a little suspicious about how much you touch the other guys. On the other hand, while Shane is admittedly a womanizing jerk, I am so hot for him it's a wonder my pants don't just burn to a crisp when he's around. I'm going to live with Shane now.

RICK: Let's have sex.

LORI: Oh, and I'm taking Carl too.

RICK: Good point, we should probably wait until he's asleep.

Daryl smirked. "I can do that."

Glenn and Rick both looked relieved that he wasn't about to whale on them in the middle of Walker Central, but T-Dog held up his hands and protested, "We gotta get those guns first though. I ain't strolling the streets of Atlanta with just my good intentions."

"Even if you had 'em, they wouldn't do you no good," Daryl scoffed. "Fire a gun on these streets, you might as well sit your ass on a plate and put an apple in your mouth."

T-Dog met his gaze squarely. "I don't care. I ain't gonna go wandering around without some kinda protection." _Unlike your crazy-ass brother_, he could have added, but didn't.

Daryl looked around incredulously. The room was full of objects that could easily be converted into melee weapons. "Ain't one of those protection enough?" He gestured at the curtain rods. Solid steel.

He was met with a stony silence.

Too frustrated to care, Daryl hoisted his crossbow. "Whatever, man." Whenever he finally found Merle, they were definitely going to get the fuck out of Georgia.

Andrea and Amy hung around the fire pit, swapping fishing stories about their father. Dale was perched on top of his RV. He was supposed to be keeping watch, but every so often his eyes drifted to the two blonde sisters, whom he had come to think of in a grand-daughterly capacity. After Jim's gruesome revelation about his family, Dale wouldn't feel safe unless they were all locked up nice and tight in the RV with the shades drawn.

Shane was chopping wood with the axe that had been used to decapitate the deer-eating walker, and also trying very hard not to look at Lori, who was smiling as she watched her son play cops-and-robbers with Sophia. Well, cop-and-robber.

Jim was tied to a tree. He felt sorry for himself.

None of them noticed the girl watching them from the trees.

Her eyes were dark, ringed with exhaustion, but they were bright with the same alertness that was also evident in the tense curve of her spine. She observed the people ranging in the camp below with the measured curiosity of a scientist. As it happened, she was looking for one subject in particular. But he wasn't there.

She sat back against the bulk of the tree and heaved a sigh of disappointment. She'd been hoping to get some medical supplies, at the very least some food, but if he wasn't there to vouch for her, she didn't feel too great about her chances with these people. They had tied one of their own to a tree, for Christ's sake. What on earth was that about? She and Army would just have to get by on whatever she could scavenge or shoot.

Sucking in a deep breath, she allowed herself to slide off the branch. It was too high a fall, and the impact jarred her all the way to her teeth. "Ow," she mumbled, trying to make them stop vibrating. Pain. There was definitely too much of that in this world.

She began to run lightly, clutching her messenger satchel to prevent it from banging against her hip. The sun had inched a few degrees higher by the time she arrived at what appeared to be a vertical expanse of rock covered with vines. Ducking into the rock – actually an artfully disguised entrance to a cave she and Army had cleaned out a couple weeks ago – the girl gratefully dumped the heavy bag off her shoulder, enjoying the damp coolness of the cave. She dug out the bag's contents: one dead rabbit, a handful of mushrooms, and a bundle of forest greens. She selected a knife from the scattered array of objects on the floor and proceeded to gut the rabbit with practiced expertise.

"Army!" she yelled. "Where you at?"

Her hands quickly became coated in blood, almost appearing to be encased in red gloves. By the time she'd laid out a nice neat pile of little rabbit organs, Army still hadn't made an appearance. "Oh, for Christ's sake," the girl muttered, careful not to touch anything as she got to her feet. "Arm? Don't tell me you're still mad about…"

Her heart thudded into her mouth as she realized Army's boots were gone.

But they only had a second to get acquainted before her heart returned to its normal location, because there was a rustling at the door and there was Army, blonde hair soaked in sweat, holding a pair of squirrels by the tail, a big grin on her face. "Oh, hey Leaf," the other girl said casually. "Didn't think you'd be back so soon."

Leaf crossed her arms, forgetting they were covered with rabbit blood. "Please. Do not attempt to bullshit a bullshitter. Where've you been?"

Army held up the squirrels with an ironic grin. "Out for a walk…bitch."

"Don't quote Buffy at me! How long has this been going on?"

"How long has what been going on?" Army asked innocently, dropping the squirrels next to the skinned and gutted rabbit and collapsing onto the woven rushes they used as bedding. "Damn, I'm tired."

"You've been going out while I'm hunting."

"So?"

"So?" Leaf repeated angrily. "Are you trying to get bitten? _Again_?"

"No," Army snapped. "What do I look like, a retard? I suited up like fucking Legolas before going out there." She gestured at the archery set she had left discarded by the entrance. "How do you think I caught those bushy-tailed beauties?"

"I thought you might have sung to them."

"Oh, very funny. Remind me to laugh next time."

Leaf allowed a brief grin. "Seriously, though! It's dangerous out there. Can't you just stay in the cave while I'm gone?" She tried not to let her voice take on a pleading tone.

Army looked around. "What, this shit-hole?"

"Hey, this is a nice cave," Leaf protested. "We've even got window…holes."

"Oh, yeah," Army said in a falsely surprised tone. "This place really shouts classy. How did I miss that?"

Leaf sighed. "Look, would you just promise me not to go out there anymore without me?"

"Don't be stupid!" Army expostulated. "We _have_ a cure. There's nothing to be worried about!"

"Even if you're protected against walkers, there's still, like, bears and shit wandering around. Plus, we don't know if it works for multiple bites," Leaf persisted. "Better to err on the side of caution."

Army threw up her hands in exasperation. "Then what the fuck did I get cured for in the first place? If you're going to make me useless, I might as well just be dead. I swear, if I turn walker, I'm going to hunt you down first."

"You're _not_ going to turn anything as long as you keep those bandages on." Leaf's voice softened a little as her gaze turned to Army's tightly bound bicep. "Does it hurt today?"

"No. It doesn't hurt anymore." By the way Army was fiddling with her hair, Leaf could tell she was lying.

"Okay," Leaf let it slide. "But they need to be changed today. It's been five days, they must be dried out by now." In silent compliance, Army began clumsily unknotting the bandages with her left hand, her face a mask of concentration. Meanwhile, Leaf collected the bundle of plants she had dropped on the floor, stuffed them into a large beaten-looking bowl, and began crushing them into a green, sticky paste with a rock. It looked like the guts of some exotic bug, but the smell was actually quite fragrant, a mix between juniper and cherry flower.

Leaf poured vodka on her fingers, then used them to smear the paste onto the untied bandages, which bore traces of several previous, similar treatments. She carefully scraped every vestige of the poultice from her fingers onto the bandages before refastening them gently, covering up the broken, black wound in the crescent shape of human teeth.


	6. Vatos :: Part 2

It was the third time Glenn had tried to convince them of his plan. "Look, I've got to go by myself!"

"No," Rick said emphatically. "You are not doing this alone."

"Even I think that's a bad idea, and I don't even like you much," Daryl said in a bored tone.

A look of irritation crossed Glenn's face. "It's a good idea, okay? Just hear me out. If we go out there in a group, we're slow, we draw attention. If I'm alone, I can move fast."

The kid did have a point. Glenn could match Daryl for speed, and his slighter frame allowed him more agility. Daryl didn't know how fast Rick could move, but he had seen T-Dog run. The guy would have a hard time beating a glacier in a foot race. As a group, they'd be far too uncoordinated to pass unseen.

To Daryl's amusement, Glenn picked up a binder clip and set it in the middle of a map he had hastily drawn on the floor with a whiteboard marker. "Look. That's the tank, five blocks from where we are now." He placed a crumpled Post-It note beside the clip. "That's the bag of guns."

He then looked earnestly at Rick. "And here's the alley I dragged you into when we first met. That's where Daryl and I will go."

Taken aback, Daryl asked, "Why me?"

"Your crossbow is quieter than his gun," Glenn explained. Daryl grimaced inwardly at having asked such an obvious question. "While Daryl waits here in the alley" – Daryl was represented with a little plastic thing for which he had no name or use –"I run up the street, grab the bag." He sat back, looking pleased.

Rick studied the floor map. "But you got us elsewhere?"

"You and T-Dog?" Glenn pushed a worn pink eraser into position. "Yeah, you guys wait here."

"Two blocks away? Why?" Rick's brow furrowed.

"I may not be able to come back the same way; walkers might cut me off. If that happens, I won't go back to Daryl; I'll go forward, all the way around to where you guys are." His finger slid from the bag of guns to Rick and T-Dog's position. "See? Whichever direction I go, I got you in both places to cover me. Afterwards we all meet back here."

Rick leaned back slowly, seeming both impressed and surprised. His silence was consent enough.

Glenn smiled, pleased with his victory.

"Hey, kid. What'd you do before all this?" Daryl asked, with a touch of genuine interest. It was the first personal question he had addressed to any of his fellow survivors, aside from his own brother. The plan Glenn had just described bore a resemblance to the traps Daryl himself used when he was hunting, but Glenn was a city kid – no way he'd been trained to think like this.

"Delivered pizzas," Glenn said, with a look of transparent honesty. "Why?"

The silence stretched on for a moment. Then he added with an impish grin, "And, of course, I played StarCraft."

"Leaf. Leaf…Leaf!"

"Huh?" Leaf sat up so fast, she experienced a sudden sense of vertigo as blood rushed from her head. "What is it? Are we being attacked?"

"Wow," Army said. She was lounging on the other side of the makeshift bed, whittling a piece of wood with a knife. "You seriously need to relax."

Leaf drew in a deep breath, partly to calm her thrumming heart, partly to relieve her exasperation. "Oh, right. I can't believe I was sleeping when I could have been relaxing."

"It's, like, three in the afternoon. You're turning into an old person," Army told her kindly.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep!" Leaf protested. "I was just really tired from…" She trailed off, for some reason reluctant to fill Army in on the guy she had met in the woods. Which was crazy; she and Army were practically sisters. "From… hunting."

"Damn," Army said in a flat tone. "That one rabbit must've put up one hell of a fight."

"I didn't get much sleep last night," Leaf lied. Sensing the opportunity for distraction, she added pointedly, "I shouldn't have fallen asleep just now, seeing as you apparently just wander out whenever you feel like it."

Army raised an eyebrow at the change in subject, but as Leaf had known, she couldn't resist the bait. "Do you realize how long you were gone? Two whole days, Leaf. Did you expect me to stay cooped up in here like a dog? I'd have gone more bat-shit crazy than a walker."

"I just thought it'd be safer that way," Leaf said helplessly.

Army sighed. "Leaf, I'm not sure if you realize this, but you aren't my mother."

"No," Leaf said sarcastically. "No, she's wandering around your completely fucked-up house, chewing on what's left of your dad and your brother."

Army examined her fingernails. "Touché. You know, Leaf, you seem somewhat bitchier than usual today. Normally it takes you a good five minutes to work up to my dead family." She rolled off the bed and stretched elaborately. "Anyway, I was tired of listening to you snore. They say you're supposed to get used to hearing a noise so after a while you don't notice it anymore, but for some reason it was just getting more and more annoying. I know!" She clapped her hands together, like she had just had an epiphany. "Let's hit the city."

Leaf stifled a sigh and sat up, running a quick hand through her hair, which was sticking up in a strange configuration. "Come on, Arm, you know it's infested with geeks."

"No, _you_ come on," Army retorted. "We haven't seen G and the rest of the guys in, like, forever."

"You whore!" With a burst of laughter, Leaf flung her pillow at Army, who tried to dodge and accidentally smacked face first into the cave's low ceiling. "You mean you haven't seen _Miguel_ in forever!"

Army cracked a grin as she massaged the red mark on her forehead. "Maybe."

"Thought you'd be over him by now," Leaf remarked, leaning back on her elbows. "Didn't you sleep with him already? Last time, second-floor closet?"

Army looked sullen. "No. Some freaking crone walked in on us. Called me something rude in Spanish and tried to spear me with her IV stand. _And_ she stepped on my shirt."

"You weren't wearing your shirt?"

Army smirked. "Or my bra."

"Didn't Miguel come to your rescue?" Leaf asked, snickering.

"Hah! No, he was all worried about 'Abuelita' or whatever the hell he called her.

'Oh Abuelita, you shouldn't be out of bed!' From the way he carried on, you'd have thought they were lovers."

"Or, you know, blood relatives," Leaf pointed out. "_Abuelita_ means grandmother."

"Fuck, really?" Army looked astonished. "Well... thank god. That is a huge relief." She giggled as she strapped a large hunting knife to her belt. "Oh god, I was such a bitch to him about it."

"Didn't he _explain_?"

"Um, he might have tried," Army admitted. "Didn't really give him the chance, just punched him and walked out." She reached for their only gun, a Colt pistol resting in its place of honor in Leaf's trunk.

"Whoa!" Miguel forgotten, Leaf vaulted off the bed and firmly slammed the trunk shut. "Firing a gun in the city is basically suicide! Remember? God, tell me you're not starting to go brain dead."

Army shot her a foul glare. "I'd have to be even more brain dead than you to forget that. No, I was just trying to get you off your lazy ass. And," she spread out her hands airily, "behold my success. Now let's go!"

If she refused, Leaf knew, Army would just go on her own. Probably get herself eaten; Army was fast and handy with a knife, but she did not seem to understand the idea of caution. Leaf supposed she hadn't burned herself on the stove enough times as a child. "Fine," Leaf conceded grudgingly. "But it's pretty late already." She glanced through one of the cave's naturally formed windows, judging the progress of the sun. "We'll probably have to stay the night."

Army flashed a smile, feral in the slanting sunlight. "That's just what I was hoping."

"So there are three races, right?"

Daryl considered. "White, black, yellow… hold up, you forgot the Mexicans."

"I can see I have my work cut out for me," Glenn sighed. "The correct answers were Zerg, Protoss, and Terran."

"…See, this is America," Daryl explained. "We speak English here."

"I _am_ speaking English. D'you want me to explain StarCraft or not?"

Daryl shrugged, only half-listening. He was composing a mental list of places to search for his dumbass brother. Merle couldn't have gone too far.

Impervious to his audience's lack of enthusiasm, Glenn chattered animatedly as he began descending the fire escape. "Most of my characters are Zerg. It's the only good race out of them all. The other two are way overpowered – only noobs use them." He paused. "_Used_ them. Starcraft was a real time strategy game. It's… it was a lot like commanding soldiers in war." He cleared his throat, seeming struck by the notion of never playing StarCraft again.

"What's a noob?" Daryl asked curiously. It was the only thing he'd picked out of a long string of gibberish.

Glenn laughed, a startling sound that echoed faintly along the alley. "Oops!" He covered his mouth with a hand, but no ravenous geeks appeared at the chain-link fence bordering the mouth of the alley. When he dropped his hand, he was still grinning. "Sorry, I've never met anyone who doesn't know."

"Forget it," Daryl muttered. Glenn began stuttering an apology, but Daryl barely heard him. He'd had his fill of condescension from his fellow survivors. He wasn't about to take it from a skinny kid half his age too.

And he'd actually been naive enough to think Glenn might be okay. Looked like things always turned out how Merle said they did: we put food on their tables, Merle said, and in return they kick us in the ribs. They treat us like fucking dogs.

Not for the first time, Daryl wondered why Merle had insisted they join this undisciplined, half-assed group that was so inexperienced and still so arrogant. He wished Merle had told him, but he was beginning to get the feeling that there were a lot of things Merle had chosen to keep to himself. More, Daryl suspected, than he could imagine.

The street outside the alley wasn't swarming with geeks, but it seemed to Daryl that there were still an unusual number of them hanging around. He wondered what could have attracted so many. Then he realized they were probably still lingering here from Rick's initial arrival in the city. It wasn't like they had a home to return to.

In front of him, Glenn muttered something like a cross between a prayer and a curse as he prepared to tackle the undead-ridden street. Daryl considered himself no coward, yet he found himself thanking providence that he wasn't the one heading out there, completely vulnerable, no weapons but his own quick feet and quick thinking.

With a rush of sympathy, he blurted, "Hey, uh..." He scrambled for something Glenn might be happy to hear. "You…you got some balls for a Chinaman."

Glenn looked at him. "I'm Korean," he said finally.

"Whatever." Feigning nonchalance, Daryl bit his lip as Glenn plunged wordlessly into the street. He'd just wanted to make peace with the guy. Some thanks he'd gotten.

He heard scuffling noises in the alley behind him. _Good_, he thought, wanting to shoot something – but the tip of his crossbow was pointing at a teenage boy who was dirty and grime-spattered and definitely alive.

Daryl forced aside the surprise of seeing another living soul in the city of the dead. "Who are you?" he demanded gruffly. "You seen my brother?"

The boy didn't seem to have heard him. His big brown eyes were fixed on the crossbow pointed at his forehead, the bolt still sticky with walker blood. "Don't shoot me!" he begged in an unnaturally loud voice.

Daryl suppressed an oath. Didn't this fool realize that flesh-eating monsters were literally twenty feet away, eagerly hunting fresh meat? "Shut _up_! Where's my brother?" he repeated in a harsh undertone.

Perhaps he shouldn't have shoved the crossbow closer to the kid's face, because the boy began to scream like a stuck pig. "_Ayudame_!" The cry brought Daryl back ten years, his second, maybe third year as a construction site manager, when one of his workers - Javier? - had gotten trapped under a weak support that crumpled as he brushed past it. "_Ayudame_," he'd cried, and was saved. Except a week later he was deported.

"Answer me!" Daryl hissed through gritted teeth, but the kid kept screaming, repeating his cry for help at a volume the geeks could probably hear throughout the entire city. Out of patience, Daryl smashed his crossbow across the kid's face, pressing his hand over the kid's mouth as he fell to his knees. "I hope you know that you're a fucking idiot!" he spat.

The kid seemed temporarily dazed by the blow; in the blessed silence that followed, Daryl tried to formulate a plan for dealing with him. He could knock him out. No. The geeks would get him while he lay unconscious; Daryl refused to do that to another person, even one as annoying as this kid. Lord, he wished Glenn would hurry-

BOOM! It wasn't so much a sound as a colossal explosion inside his skull. Something heavy and metal had smashed into the side of his head. Groaning, he rolled onto his side, automatically trying to protect his face as more blows rained down, this time on his back. He heard someone yelling in Spanish, then a feverish and excited voice he didn't know saying, "That's the bag, vato! Get it, get it!" and the blows stopped at once.

The bag? Brain pounding, Daryl attempted to marshal his thoughts into some kind of order, but they all seemed to have been knocked loose. He struggled to remain conscious and alert. The bag...Glenn had the bag. And if Glenn had the bag, then they – whoever _they_ were – were probably after him now. Through eyes slit with pain, Daryl could see, at the end of the alley, two people raining hits upon a limp figure huddled against the gate.

One of them had the precious gun bag slung over his meaty shoulder.

Daryl snatched up his crossbow, took aim. The _thunk_ of arrow finding flesh gave him a savage joy, but it was short-lived. The uninjured man got Glenn around the throat and dragged him backward through the gate, into an old Camaro that peeled up seemingly out of nowhere.

The other man had dropped the gun bag, but he seemed too distracted by the arrow poking out of his ass to recall its importance. He limped towards the car - slow, but still faster than the geeks, and in seconds he'd slammed the door. The car screeched away, leaving a smell of burnt rubber in the small alley.

"No!" Daryl yelled. "Come back here, you sumbitches!" There was nothing he hated more than a coward who would rather flee than see the fight through. Yet even he had to admit the fight was over; nothing remained of Glenn and the attackers except a few tire marks, and ravenous walkers were already stumbling towards the scene of the commotion.

Seething, Daryl slammed the gate shut, locking it as securely as the mechanism allowed. He whipped around to deal with the kid, who just seemed to be getting to his feet. That was funny, because Daryl intended to make sure he never got to his feet again. "You little fuck!" he raged, aiming a kick at the boy's ribs. "I'm gonna kick your nuts up into your throat!"

Someone restrained him from behind. He was about to hit them too, until he realized it was only Rick. T-Dog was hovering over the boy, and the boy was pointing at Daryl and crying to T-Dog about the "insane hick murderer." Daryl hoped he didn't think the nice black man was going to help him. T-Dog knew better than to cross Daryl.

Daryl's head began to clear. Impatiently, he freed himself from Rick's grip. The hungry cries of the dead clamoring at the gate were growing ever louder, and the smell was starting to get to him; he realized that here was not the place, nor was now the time to beat answers out of his captive.

Without looking to see if the others followed, he took to the fire escape, two ladder rungs at a time. As he climbed, he thought, _Now that makes two we gotta find._

_Great._

Army plunged her machete into a walker's neck and slashed downward, spraying an arc of rotting flesh and congealed blood that narrowly missed Leaf's boots.

"Hey, watch it!" Leaf snapped.

Army flipped her golden hair back from her face. She smiled at Leaf contritely. "Sorry, hon. Watch your step." Her right arm was a rusty red up to her elbow, appearing to be dressed in one of those half-arm lady gloves that women used to wear all the time.

Leaf looked back uncertainly. Army had left a trail of ripped-up corpses marking their journey into the city, and if the geeks weren't brain dead, she'd have worried about being followed. "Do you have to kill every single one we come across? It's slowing us down."

"The g's are like a bundle of twigs, L," Army said philosophically. "Together, they can overwhelm you, but one by one, they break easy as eggs." She gestured lazily at the pieces of walker oozing on the sidewalk in front of her. "Why not take advantage of the facts?"

Leaf turned away. If they didn't keep walking, they wouldn't even reach G's hospital before sunset. "They might find a cure. You never know. We found one."

"Yeah, but it only works if you haven't turned yet," Army reminded her. "The guy didn't even have a nose anymore! Tell me, Leaf, was he just going to magically grow that back?"

"I …guess not." Finally they reached the hidden entrance of the hospital. Leaf brushed aside a hanging curtain of wild ivy and ducked into the side yard, which was encircled with a gate of iron.

"And who's _they_, anyway?" Army continued, as she followed Leaf through the hospital doors. "The CDC? For all we know they don't even"—

"Back off and put your hands where I can see them!" Leaf almost walked straight into the shiny barrel of a shotgun. She reflexively leaped back, knocking into Army, and both went sprawling.

"Jesus, Alberto!" she yelled from the floor. "It's just us!"

Alberto, a rangy man with a ragged moustache, looked a little embarrassed as he lowered the gun. "Sorry, _chicas_. Didn't expect to see you two."

"I told Leaf we should have called ahead," Army joked lightly.

Alberto managed a slight smile, but his eyes kept flicking towards the door, and his manner was that of a man on edge. "What is it, Alberto?" Leaf asked, sensing his tension.

"Honestly, _mija_, now's not a good time," Alberto replied, running nervous fingers over his gun. "We had some trouble earlier today. You girls should turn around and head home."

"It's late," Leaf pointed out in surprise. "You can't send us out there, it'll be dark soon."

Army bounded to her feet, her tangle of golden hair flying every which way. "We'll help! What happened?"

"Did someone get bitten?" Leaf asked anxiously, her eyes darkening.

"No," Alberto reassured her. "Nothing like that. It was… you know the bag of guns, on the corner of Alder and 7th?"

"Yeah," Leaf and Army said together.

"Felix, Miguel, and Jose went to pick it up today." Leaf noticed Army's countenance darken at the mention of Miguel. So, Army could guess where this story was going, too. "But," Alberto continued, "they encountered something nobody expected. _Other people_."

"Other, like, _living_ people?" Army asked, as if unable to comprehend the idea.

"Of course. They wanted the guns too. There was a fight."

"Someone got hurt?" Army asked, her expression suddenly fragile. "Did Miguel …" Almost without thinking about it, Leaf curled her fingers around Army's hand for support. Her hand was even hotter than usual, sending a wave of fire up Leaf's arm.

"No..." Alberto hesitated. "Well, Felix got shot in the butt with an arrow."

An arrow. Leaf's mind immediately leapt to the man with the crossbow in the woods. What were the chances it was him? Pretty high, she realized, considering the miniscule survivor count. Not many people considered a bow their weapon of choice.

She tightened her fingers around Arm's burning hand as Felix went on. "Miguel…" He spoke the next words reluctantly; everyone in the hospital knew about Army and Miguel's relationship. "Miguel was captured."

"Captured," Army repeated in a dead tone.

Alberto peered at her tentatively. "Yes…that's what I said."

Leaf slid a comforting arm across Army's thin shoulders, stroking her tangled hair back from her face. "Arm, talk to me, babe," she whispered, but Army broke free, an angry jerkiness in her movements, and strode back towards the door they had just entered. "Army!" In her haste to follow, Leaf almost tripped over her own shoelaces. "What are you doing!"

"Getting Miguel," Army stated matter-of-factly.

"Don't be retarded! There's only minutes left to sunset! You'll never find him," Leaf pleaded, but her desperation fell upon deaf ears. She turned to Alberto. "Tell her how stupid she's being!"

Alberto caught Army by the elbow just as she reached the door. "Leaf is right, _mija_," he said urgently. "You're throwing your life away!"

"Better than sitting here on my ass and twiddling my thumbs, like you!" Army shot back. "You're just giving up on him? You got the guns, so forget the boy?" She wrenched her arm free. "You're pathetic!"

Alberto shoved Army hard against the wall. With a yell of rage, she tried to push him off, but he pinned her down tight. "We would never desert a brother, _chica_," he said in a firm, quiet tone. "Every man of us would give his life for Miguel." Army stared at him defiantly with eyes that said _I don't believe you_. "You better hear me out before storming off to die, girl."

"Fine," Army spat. "Try and convince me. I could do with something to laugh at."

"For a start, we don't even have the guns. Felix dropped them when he got shot." Army's chin lowered a fraction of an inch. "Second, I said Miguel is their hostage. Well, we have a hostage of our own. He's sitting pretty in the common room right now, bound hand and foot."

"What?" Army gasped. She began fighting Alberto's arms again. "Why didn't you say that first? Oh, get off me, Alberto, I'm not going out there!" Alberto finally stepped back, and she shot for the stairs, grabbing Leaf along the way and dragging her by the hand. Alberto yelled after her, "It's no use! He won't tell us anything!"

He barely caught Army's reply, echoing back down the stairwell.

"He just needs the right kind of persuasion!"


	7. Kiss of Life

The bar was loud and crowded, a little too much so for Daryl's liking. What had he expected? It was Saturday night. His cooler was empty, and he'd come here to get well and truly drunk. Merle was expected to show up soon, although Daryl had learned a long time ago to never count on his brother's presence.

Daryl slunk a little lower in his seat, eyeing the empty shot of vodka in front of him and wondering which number he was on. He seemed to remember ordering an eighth and ninth shot. That was important, because he usually passed out around the tenth.

Jason, who was sitting across from him – Daryl and his friends had managed to score a whole table for themselves – was saying something to him. Mouthing it really, the music was up that loud. Daryl leaned forward, vaguely bemused by how the walls seemed to be moving. He could just make out Jason's shouted message: "Check out that chick over there!"

Daryl followed Jason's finger to, _whoa_, was that Linda? _She shouldn't be drinking when she's pregnant_, he thought drowsily, even as he rubbed his eyes hard and realized she was just a blonde woman who bore nothing more than a vague resemblance to his cousin. "Want me to play wingman?" he slurred.

Jason eyed him, evidently weighing his need for a wingman against Daryl's obvious inebriation. Finally he jerked his head in agreement and rose from his seat, grinning. Daryl pushed himself up, feeling as if he was swimming through mud. He was light-headed and heavy at the same time. With Jason following, he pushed his way to where the woman sat alone, sucking down shots of whiskey like she wanted to drown in alcohol. Daryl knew the feeling.

"Hey," he said in as sober a voice as he could manage. "Someone as pretty as you shouldn't be drinking alone tonight."

He meant to follow that up with "Have you met my friend Jason?" but the woman looked up at him, her dark eyes shining like jewels, and he realized belatedly that she was crying. "Oh shit…" he mumbled. He raked a heavy hand through his hair. "I'm sorry," he offered in a slurred voice. "Shouldn't have bothered you…got enough trouble…" On the other side of the bar, he could see Jason giving him a _what-the-fuck_ face. He felt so tired. Screw Jason, screw Merle, he was going home.

"No, please…stay." Tears ran in rivulets down the woman's cheeks, but she made no effort to hide them. "I have to talk to somebody." She made a funny sound, a mix between a laugh and a hiccup and a sob, and downed another shot with a flip of her wrist. The bartender was eyeing her and Daryl could tell he was thinking about cutting her off. "I have to talk to someone or I'll go crazy!"

She didn't seem to notice that her hand was actually trembling as she set down the glass. It was an effort just to remain standing, and Daryl gladly relinquished control of his legs to the bar stool beside the crying woman. "Tell me," he mumbled, letting his head sink onto his arms. "Everythin'."

She launched into a long tearful story, replete with people with names like Gannon and Desmond and Farkas, a convoluted love entanglement more emotional than any soap opera. Daryl occasionally nodded, or murmured some appropriate comment, but it was only as the woman neared the end of her story that she truly captured his attention.

"So Gannon said he wouldn't take responsibility for Alistair" - her newborn son, to whom she had been referring all night - "until the results of the paternity test came back. And the doctor said they'd be done the 28th, and I'm so afraid to-"

"The 28th?" Daryl interrupted. The date cut through his murky consciousness like the beam of a lighthouse. There was something important about it. "When is the 28th? Is that today?"

The woman sucked in a long, shuddering breath. "Yes."

Saturday the 28th. A newborn baby. A woman who looked like Linda. "I have somewhere to be!" Daryl stumbled to his feet. "Don't wanna leave you in the...lurch, but... I said I'd be there."

The woman gazed at him sadly. "You have to go?"

Daryl nodded, swaying. "Cousin's ...baby shower."

The darkness seemed to clear a little from the woman's brow, and she managed a smile. "Babies are adorable." She drew herself unsteadily to her feet, tottering in three inch heels that brought her to Daryl's chin. "You are too, mister."

"No, I ain't," Daryl protested, like a little boy.

"Yes you are, you're a sweetheart and a good person," she murmured. She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Daryl's neck, and Daryl closed his eyes and thought this must be how his mom used to kiss him, before abuse and hopelessness had turned her bitter.

"Hey, you wanna know a secret?" he said into the woman's hair.

"Yeah."

"You're my best friend."

"You're my best friend too," she whispered. Then, slowly and gracefully as though she was sinking in water, she lowered herself to her seat, sprawled across the counter, and went to sleep.

Gently, Daryl brushed her hair back from her face. "Hey, man," he said to the bartender, "watch her stuff," and the bartender took her purse and slid it under his side of the counter. "Have a nice night," Daryl told him as he made his way to the exit.

The cool, refreshing wind outside cleared his head a little, and he recalled where he'd parked his truck. Someone on his way in walked straight into Daryl, who lost his balance and stumbled against the hood of someone's car. "Hey!" he cried, enraged. "Don't fuckin'... push me... Merle? Brother, is that you?" He peered into the man's face.

"Who were you expectin', the Tooth Fairy?" Merle's laughter had a maniacal tinge to it. "Of course it's me. Me me me me hey don't you think it's funny how if you say a word too many times it don't sound right no more?"

Daryl pondered the question seriously. "No," he said after a long moment. "Ain't nothing right when taken in excess."

"Except drugs," Merle smiled. "And alcohol."

"Amen to that," Daryl said sleepily. An idea occurred to him. "Hey, you wanna go to Linda's baby shower with me?"

"Linda? That one of your bitches?"

"No, asshole, our cousin."

"Oh, right," Merle groaned. "That one." He contemplated. "Bro, I already _went_ to her baby shower."

"What the fuck?" That struck Daryl as so funny that he started laughing harder than he'd ever laughed in his life. "Who the fuck _are_ you, God?"

Merle hooted. "Damn straight. I am God."

"OK, God," Daryl said, wiping away tears of laughter. "Wanna go again? Actually pick up the chick you failed to impress the first time?"

Merle casually dusted white powder off his jacket. "Why the hell not? Why the hell not? Let's go, little bro."

They got into Daryl's truck in a companionable silence. "I made a friend today," Daryl blurted into the quiet.

"So?"

Daryl could not understand Merle's indifference. "So she was nice. She had pretty blond hair and told me about her kid and she even gave me a kiss. She was nice."

Merle snickered. "Oh, that kind of friend."

"No!" Daryl yelled, slamming his horn for emphasis. "She was not that kind of friend!"

"Then what kind was she?" Merle challenged, as they stopped before a red light.

The streets were completely empty, though Daryl could hear the telltale engine roars in the distance that meant kids were drag racing on the back roads.

"The best kind," Daryl told him defiantly.

Merle cocked his head, drumming his fingers in a complicated staccato on the dashboard. "Your best friend, huh? What's her name?"

"Don't know."

Merle burst out laughing. "Some friend you are!"

"I don't need to know her name," Daryl said stubbornly. "I just know she's my

friend."

"Yeah, and I'm the President of the United States, so kiss my ass, bitch. Wait!" Merle yelled so loudly that Daryl stomped on the brake and they both flew forward, Daryl restrained by his seatbelt and Merle hitting the windshield because he wasn't wearing his.

"What?" Daryl cried.

Merle unpeeled himself from the glass, talking so fast his words were jumbled together. He didn't seem to notice his nose was bleeding, so Daryl decided not to point it out. "We gotta buy a present! You can't go to a baby shower without a present!"

Daryl's eyes grew wide at the thought of the social faux pas he and Merle had nearly committed. They were only a few blocks from Linda's house, at least the house he thought Linda still lived at. "Why didn't you mention that earlier? Now we gotta drive all the way back to town."

"Or do we?" Merle surveyed the dark neighborhood. "Look at all these houses, bro. There's gotta be something in one of them that Linda would like."

Daryl's eyebrows drew together. "You mean stealing? You wanna steal her a present from one of her neighbors?" The idea was so ludicrous that he started laughing uncontrollably again. "What if we stole a painting, and then she had that neighbor over one day, and he saw it hanging clear as day on her wall?"

Merle howled with laughter. "Bro, that would be hilarious!"

"Yeah," Daryl agreed, chuckling. "Only ... that might make her sad."

"Who the fuck cares?" Merle said dismissively.

"I do," Daryl insisted. "Just wait here." He rolled out of the driver's seat, picked himself up, and looked around. There was a large, decorative lake nearby that seemed to be a communal landscaping kind of thing, and he figured no one would miss a few flowers from the many that grew along the water's edge. He went over and began picking branches of flowers, their fragrances rising to brush his face with tender fingers. He supposed they were pretty; he could hardly even see what shape they were, let alone their color, but they were flowers, how bad could

they be?

He returned to the truck with his armload of flowers. Merle was absorbed with his lighter, putting his finger as close to the flame as he dared. Daryl went around to the back where he had some old newspapers. He wrapped pages around the stems and tied them in place with twine. He laid the bouquet in the back, feeling proud of his work, and returned to the cab.

Merle now lay in the passenger seat with his head tipped back like one dead, his body limp and unoccupied. "Merle?" Daryl shook him, but his brother did not respond. Daryl felt anxiously for a pulse, and relaxed when the faint beat of pumping blood thrummed against his thumb. "Just sleeping, then," he muttered, gunning his engine. What a lightweight. He'd miss out on the party.

He parked at the foot of Linda's driveway and looked uncertainly at what he thought was her house. Was it supposed to be so dark? None of the lights were on. Maybe all the guests were in the basement. Reassured by the thought, Daryl weaved drunkenly through the cold night and pressed his finger against the doorbell. It only took him two tries.

Chimes rang throughout the house. "Wow, that's loud," Daryl whispered, pressing his ear against the door. He could hear light footsteps moving around, coming closer and closer to -

The door abruptly opened, and Daryl almost fell in through the doorway for lack of support. He caught himself a second from crashing into the polished hardwood floor. "Excuse me, sorry," he apologized. He looked down at his arms. He was holding the bouquet. He offered it to Linda, who happened to be the person who had opened the door. "Here, congratulations."

She looked at him as though he were a ghost. "Daryl? What are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?"

Daryl looked at his bare wrist. "Is it nine o clock?"

Linda gave a curt laugh. "Not even close! Try midnight. Do you mind telling me why you woke up me and my daughter so you could give me a bunch of muddy wildflowers?" She frowned at the bouquet. "I guess they are kind of pretty. But that's not the point."

"I came for your baby shower," Daryl said thickly. "You invited me, remember? Now you're trying to kick me out?"

Linda looked at him askance. "Daryl... Are you being serious right now?" She took a step closer to him, and he saw her nose wrinkle in disgust. "You're drunk. I can smell it on you. Get out, Daryl."

"Today's the 28th!" Daryl protested, refusing to move as she attempted to shove him through the door. "I came, I brought you a present... I did everything, why can't I stay?"

"Because my baby shower was Saturday the 28th, _six years_ ago!" Linda exploded. "You didn't come then! You didn't come to my wedding! You didn't come to Mom's funeral..." Her voice faltered. "Mom told me what you said, Daryl. How you just wanted to forget we all existed."

Daryl slid to the floor with the feeling that his legs had been knocked out under him. The pleasant fog of alcohol that had clouded his mind suddenly fell away, revealing a bleak, harsh, utterly terrifying reality."Six years?" he echoed.

"Yeah," Linda said sarcastically as she leaned against the wall, hugging her thin robe to her body. "I counted."

"How old am I?" Daryl asked randomly.

"God, I don't know, 40?" She reconsidered. "Actually, you're only a year older than me. You're 32."

Daryl recoiled. "I don't remember any of it..."

"Any of what? Life? That's what happens when you go to sleep every night with a bottle in your arms, Daryl. It's all just a blur." Linda sighed, looking at him with a little less antipathy. "Look, you're way too drunk to be behind the wheel right now. I don't even want to think about how you got here. You can stay here, ok? Sleep on the couch in the living room. I'll bring you a pillow and blankets." She disappeared upstairs.

Too dazed to do anything but follow directions, Daryl robotically checked room after room until he came upon a large, well-furnished space with a piano in the corner and a couch that looked comfortable enough. He sat down. Then he hesitantly lay down. At the last moment he remembered to take off his shoes, so he didn't leave muddy stains on the fabric.

Daryl had almost drifted off when a shy voice said, "Hi," from somewhere out of sight.

He turned his face towards the voice, but neglected to open his eyes. "Hi."

"Are you my new daddy?"

The question surprised Daryl into sitting up, despite his weariness. "No. Why would you say that?" He looked around the darkness. Though he could see nothing, he could guess who he was talking to. "Where are you, invisible girl? I can't hardly even see you."

The little girl giggled softly and turned on the light. She was very small, though Daryl could not say whether her size was normal for six-year-olds. "Oh, there you are," he said. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?" He could think of nothing else.

"I was," she said, regarding him solemnly with clear blue eyes. "You woke me up."

"Sorry," Daryl said, wondering if the night was going to end with him apologizing to a small child. "Didn't mean to." The little girl was dressed in a furry nightgown that looked warm, but her feet were bare. He cleared his throat. "Ain't you cold?"

"No," the girl said, but she climbed onto the other side of the couch and snuggled into the blankets all the same. "I don't feel cold. Mommy says I'm part polar bear."

"Oh, does she." A smile curled Daryl's lips. To his surprise, he realized he didn't want to hold it back.

"I like polar bears a lot. They're my favorite bear," the girl stated matter-of-factly. "What's yours?"

"My favorite...bear?" Daryl mentally scratched his head. It had been so long since anyone asked him a question like this. "Um, grizzlies. They're big and tough, an' they make good hunting." He bared his teeth at the girl, and she gave a squeal, pulling the blanket up under her eyes. For a second, he panicked, thinking he'd actually scared her, but then he saw that she was smiling. There was a big gap in her smile.

"Lost a tooth?"

She nodded. "My first one."

Daryl wondered when he had lost his first tooth. He had a feeling it had probably been knocked out by Merle a couple years before its time.

"How much you get for it?"

"Dollar thirty-five."

Daryl found himself nodding. "For a canine, that's a fair trade," he said seriously. "Now, a molar, one of those big ones at the back, they'd be worth far more. Three dollars at the very least."

The girl absorbed this wisdom with wide eyes, like she was trying to memorize the information forever. "Really? Three dollars?" She smiled. "Thank you for telling me."

Daryl chuckled. "Wouldn't want you to get stiffed."

The girl looked down at her small hands. Then she looked back at Daryl. "Now I wish you really _were_ my daddy. You're nice. Can you please marry Mommy? I promise she's really nice too."

Daryl let out a whoop of laughter. The girl looked upset. "Don't laugh at me!"

"I'm not laughing at you," Daryl promised. "It's just funny because... I'm actually your uncle, darlin'."

The little girl gasped. "You're mommy's brother? She never talked about you before. But she has a picture of you and another boy that she looks at sometimes. I think it's you anyway. She keeps it in a drawer upstairs. I always ask her about it but she never tells me." She drew in a quick breath. "Why didn't you ever come visit us before?"

Daryl had no answer to that. "Me and Merle, we're her cousins," he said at last. "And I don't really know why I never came before, but now that I'm here, you want me to stay?"

"Yes," the girl replied without the least hesitation.

"Then I will." Daryl breathed the words softly.

The little girl got up and turned off the light. Daryl suffered a strange, unfamiliar little heart pang at the absence of her warmth, but he heard rustling and realized she had come back.

"Don't you gotta be in your own bed?" he asked anyway, because he didn't want her to get in trouble with her mom.

"I wanna stay with you."

"Okay." Daryl shut his eyes once again, trying to accustom his body to sleeping in a smaller amount of space.

Her high voice floated to him in the darkness. "What's your name?"

"Daryl," he murmured. "What's yours?"

"Marcella Emily Hunt," the girl pronounced proudly.

"That's...long."

"You can just call me Marcie. That's what everyone calls me. I mean, well, that's what I wish everyone called me. Mommy always calls me Marcella and my teachers just do what she does."

"I'll never call you Marcella as long as I live," Daryl promised, and was rewarded with her little-girl laughter, bubbling in the dark like spring water.

"Good night, Uncle Daryl."

"Good night...Marcie."


	8. Vatos :: Part 3

"So how are you going to play this?"

"Play what?" Army echoed in a distracted tone.

"This whole interrogation thing!" Leaf gestured as best she could while keeping pace with Army's long, angry strides. "Are you just going to, like, beat him until he talks?"

Army scoffed. "Are you stupid? Alberto said they already tried that."

Leaf blinked. "Then what?"

"Ah, you know me, Leaf. I've got my ways." Army flashed a little grin, then abruptly stopped before a corner. Leaf walked into her, gave an _oomph_, and received an irritated elbow in the ribs.

"Try not to be so fucking clumsy."

"Is he over there?" Leaf attempted to peer past Army around the corner.

"Obviously." Army shoved her back. "Stop it, they'll see you!"

"Who?"

"Who do you think? The guards on the door, dipshit. The guy isn't a friggin' tourist, he's a hostage."

Leaf fell silent. She tried to console herself with the thought that Army was under a lot of stress and worry about Miguel right now, and couldn't spare any extra emotion for her best friend. Somehow, that made her feel worse.

Army's eyes narrowed in thought. "I've been in that room," she said, thinking aloud.

"I've never even been on this floor," Leaf said.

"With Miguel," Army clarified dismissively. "It's pretty private in there. The elderly spend an afternoon there every so often. And guess what?" She started walking back the way they'd come. "I know another way in."

"And it involves walking farther away?"

"I know I saw one… aha!" Kneeling, Army pried the grate from a low air-conditioning duct that had fallen silent the day electricity cut out. Dust layered the floor of the duct, undisturbed. Without further ado, she clambered into the duct, barely fitting despite being post-apocalyptically skinny.

"Ah, the classic 'crawling in through the ducts' approach," Leaf remarked. No answer came back to her through the duct. She sighed and dropped to her knees. _The things I do for love_. Leaf quickly propelled herself into the duct. It became very cramped, very fast – a tight squeeze, especially around her hips – and she sucked in her stomach as she wriggled along behind Army's muddy, faded boots. Her face suddenly ran smack into Army's heel and she recoiled, spitting reflexively. "Ew, nasty!"

"Would you just chill?" Ahead, Army fumbled with something, and after a few seconds, light flooded the dark duct. In the seconds while Leaf blinked, trying to adjust her vision, Army had already disappeared.

"Army?" Leaf whispered. When no response came, she edged forward.

"Ah!" Leaf's gasp of surprise was lost in the _whoosh_ of her fall, air rushing past her in a bewildering current. She landed ungracefully on a pile of moth-eaten foam mats. "A little warning would've been nice," she muttered at Army, who was brushing herself off.

"Just let me do the talking."

"Is someone there?" the hostage asked. From behind, all Leaf could see was that he had dark hair and wore a scruffy corduroy jacket. His voice was very young.

"Shh." Army's voice was suddenly soothing. "I'm a friend." They moved around to face the hostage, as he was tied to a chair. He was blindfolded too, and there were lines on his face where a gag had been bound too tightly.

"Andrea?" the hostage tried.

"Even better," Army promised in a low, seductive voice.

"Who are you? Do you work for them?" He sounded suspicious.

"You can trust me," Army said in her sweetest tones. "I'm going to take off your blindfold now. You'll be quiet, right?"

"…OK," he agreed hesitantly.

Army winked at Leaf. Then she slowly slid forward, step by step until she was literally straddling the hostage. He let out a gasp as he felt her weight, his shoulders tensing. _I bet his posture's not the only thing that just stiffened._ Leaf rolled her eyes. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.

With gentle fingers, Army pulled down the dirty bandana tied over the man's eyes. "Hello," she cooed gently.

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down in his increasingly flushed throat. "Hey," he got out.

"What's your name, handsome?" Tilting her head to one side, Army began playing with the strands of hair that hung in the guy's eyes.

"G-Glenn," he stammered.

"I'm Harmony. Army for short. That's my friend Leaf over there. Say hi to Leaf."

"Hi to Leaf," Glenn squeaked.

"Hi," Leaf said dryly.

"We're here to help," Army said reassuringly. "We saw them take you captive." Her eyes lingered on the fresh cut above his brow. "Everything they did to you...You're so _brave_."

Charmed, Glenn managed an embarrassed smile. He was actually kind of cute when he did that. "Not really," he admitted. "Daryl, Shane, even the new guy Rick…they're all much braver than me. Better with weapons, too. Me, I'm just along for the ride."

"Are those the guys you were with when you were attacked?" Army asked innocently.

"Yeah. Not Shane, though. He's back at camp." _Wow_, Leaf marveled. _He's not holding anything back, is he?_ She was amazed by Army's ability to completely win a guy's trust with a glance of those wide blue eyes.

"What were you doing in the city? You do know it's full of walkers, right?"

"You don't say," Glenn joked, seeming more at ease. "Earlier, there was an…accident. One of ours got left behind. Daryl's brother. We came back to get him, but we couldn't find him. He's probably…" His eyes dropped. His voice failed.

"I'm so sorry," Army said, with a gentle stroke of his hair to show how contrite she was.

"It's fine." Glenn chuckled slightly. "Honestly, I didn't like him. No one did. He was a racist old redneck, the kind that gives the South a bad rep. I'm pretty sure Daryl only stuck with him because he held the honor of being Daryl's last living blood relative. Daryl's a lot nicer than Merle was, though," he added with an almost defensive edge in his tone.

"I didn't say he wasn't."

Glenn blinked. "Yeah, I guess you didn't. Sorry. I'm just used to people ragging on Daryl all the time; everyone at camp thinks he's just like Merle. They look down on him 'cause he lived in a trailer even before the dead started walking." His voice rose. "But he's actually a cool guy, and it's really unfair that they don't even give him a chance."

Leaf almost fell asleep under the onslaught of moralizing waffle, but to her credit, Army's captivated expression was convincingly real. "Poor guy," she crooned. "He doesn't have it as bad as you do right now, though."

"Actually, I think I'm in a pretty good place." Glenn grinned bashfully.

Tucking her hair behind one ear, Army leaned in and they started sucking face.

Leaf groaned inwardly. It was probably all very magical for the guy, who acted like he'd never even been within 10 feet of a pretty girl before, but the situation was downright uncomfortable for the third-wheeling observer. She fidgeted, glancing out the window. Darkness had fallen. She and Army would have to sleep here tonight. Of course, the way things were going, Army and Glenn would shortly be doing some very special sleeping of their own.

"Weren't we planning some sort of rescue slash escape?" Leaf hinted.

Army drew back with a soft sucking noise, sounding like a very small plunger. Glenn's eyes remained closed as if he had passed into a coma. "Yes, Leaf. That is correct. We want to conclude this sordid business, do we not? Glenn, baby, where do you think your companions are hiding out?"

"My com'anions?" Glenn's speech capabilities seemed to have become very limited.

"Do you think they'd come back for you?" Leaf prompted.

"Uh, uh," he stuttered, trying to jumpstart his thought processes, "yeah. I mean, I hope so."

"There you go, Arm," Leaf said. "All we gotta do is wait. They'll bring Miguel back, we'll make a trade…"

"Sometimes," Army said, "you are revoltingly dumb. Firstly, there is no guarantee that they will come back for him. They have the guns, after all. Secondly, there is a high possibility that they'll double cross us."

"I don't think they want to keep Miguel, though," Leaf ventured.

"They could be cannibals for all we know! Who knows what they could be doing to him right now, for their own sick pleasure? They could be torturing him…cutting off his ears…"

"Hey, they wouldn't do that," Glenn objected. "Rick, Daryl and T-Dog are reasonable, honest guys. You don't have anything to worry about."

Army turned a falsely hopeful smile on him. "For real?"

"Of course," Glenn said reassuringly. "If we escaped and showed up at the Sodex building right now, he'd probably still –"

"Did you say Sodex building? Thanks, that was all I needed to know." Army slid off Glenn's lap with agility and strode for the door. "Come on, Leaf. Which way do you think is faster, Rhodes Street or Washington?"

"Wait, you forgot me!" rose Glenn's panicked voice.

"Not an accident," Army tossed back as she and Leaf burst through the door.

"What the – _puta madre,_ what were you two doing in there?" one of the guards, Andre, asked angrily.

"Getting information. Incidentally, you might want to check on the prisoner. There's been a breach in security." Army sprinted for the stairs, Leaf trailing like her namesake on the wind of her friend's determination.

Andre hated it when unexpected things happened. He wasn't good at dealing with emergencies; his forte was following orders. Luckily, he had been given one. After a moment of pause during which he worked all this out in his head, he and his partner went in to check on the prisoner.

It had been a long, grueling two hours, yet the kid still refused to talk. He wouldn't tell them where his base was or how many people were in his group. Daryl had to admire his grit. Of course, if Rick had allowed him to follow through on the threat to slice off an ear, the boy might have been slightly more voluble.

They stood in a ring around the kid, who looked up at them with sullen defiance despite the fact that he was bound to a chair.

"Well," Rick said at last, "I'm exhausted. And Miguel here is clearly not willing to tell us anything. I think we could all benefit from a few hours of sleep."

"I'll take first watch," Daryl said gruffly.

Upon these words, T-Dog immediately stretched out on the ground and fell asleep, his breaths unexpectedly quiet and child-like. Rick hesitated, pale gaze flicking back and forth between Daryl and the kid.

"Do I need to set some ground rules here?" he asked. "No bullying, perhaps?"

Daryl glowered. "Just go to sleep."

Rick lay down.

"Asshole," Daryl muttered.

"I heard that."

A few seconds passed in silence, during which Rick took Daryl's advice and fell asleep.

"Y'all bicker like an old married couple," the kid said mockingly.

Daryl smirked at him deliberately as he lit a smoke. "Oh, now you want to talk."

The kid gave him a stare. "Not with the likes of you, _hijo de perro_." But his eyes strayed to the lit cigarette in Daryl's fingers. Daryl exhaled a smoky cloud and watched the kid's nostrils dilate as he tried to inhale as much of the scent as possible. Just to corroborate his hunch, Daryl watched the kid's hands for a tremor. He soon realized the kid's entire body was in fact trembling ever so slightly. _He's got it bad_, Daryl thought. This was good. It gave him an in.

"You sure about that?" he asked, exhaling another cloud.

The kid squeezed his eyes shut. His trembling had grown worse.

Daryl flipped the box over in his hand. "Newports," he said. "Best cigs in Georgia."

"F-Fuck that," the kid gasped. "I wouldn't give my dog Newports. Hand-rolled is the shit."

"Well, I guess Newports would do in a pinch," Daryl said, calmly inspecting his cigarette. "Like now, for instance."

"You think I'll give up my crew for a _cigarette_?" the kid managed. "Motherfucker. Think again. Never in a million years."

"Actually, I think you'd kill your mother just for a drag on the shittiest spent cigarette this side of the US. I know how it feels. You can't breathe. Your lungs, all the air just gets sucked out of 'em. You feel so weak you can barely even walk." Daryl gave the kid an insincere grin. "Addiction sucks, kid, but right now I thank God it exists."

"Fuck you," the kid said. He was shaking. "_Fuck you_."

Daryl took a long, contemplative drag, exhaling with peaceful serenity. "So what'll it be, kid?" he asked, smoke escaping in curling tendrils through his smile.

Daryl nudged T-Dog awake. "Your turn," he said briefly, before unlatching the only window in the room.

As T-Dog stretched on the floor, trying to dispel the vapors of sleep still fogging his mind, Daryl offered the cigarette to the kid, who had been watching him with hollow, hungry eyes. He lunged forward and sucked deeply, the tendons of his thin neck in sharp relief. His trembling exhale was of joy, of release. "Again," he begged, and Daryl allowed him one more puff. The cigarette was now spent and Daryl crushed it beneath his heel.

"Please. A whole one," the kid said.

"No," Daryl said. "That took the edge off. Any more, and that need's gonna be replaced with the shame of singing like a bird in a cage. Trust me when I say this, kid: there is no worse feeling than shame."

The kid swore, calling him "_diablo blanco_" as he clambered over the narrow sill, but he ignored it. He'd do a little reconnaissance on the hospital, where the kid claimed they had their base, and make sure it all checked out. If possible he would rescue Glenn himself. And …then they could resume the search for Merle. Right. That was the important thing.

He dropped to the roof below and felt the thin sensation of a blade against his throat.

"Well, well, what have we here," said a soft voice. Daryl did not wait for the speaker to discover the answer to that question, but quickly maneuvered to jam his crossbow in the speaker's torso. The speaker emitted a feminine grunt of pain, but managed to keep her blade in position.

Daryl looked at her. He assumed she looked back, as her face was in shadow. "Seems we are at an impasse," she said, a sly smile in her voice.

"Army!" Another slender figure pulled itself onto the roof. Her voice was familiar, and after a moment Daryl placed her as the girl who'd killed his deer. He ground his teeth slightly. He had a score to settle with her. "Oh my God, what is going on?"

"We've stumbled upon the watchdog, I'm afraid," the knife-wielder – Army – said with a faint sigh. "I'd kill him, but it would slightly inconvenience me."

"In the way of your intestines spilling out," Daryl said.

"Yes," she agreed. "Inconvenient, as I said."

The deer-killer pulled a knife and pointed it at him. "Let her go," she said, her voice shaking a little.

Daryl raised an eyebrow. "Or what? You're gonna stab me from all the way over there? Try anything, and she's food for the walkers." There was a tense lull, as each person considered the situation and saw no resolution. "Why don't we just step away from each other in 3…2…1…"

He backed up a step, feeling the reassuring presence of a solid brick wall against his back. Likewise, Army retreated, moving to stand beside her friend.

"I'd ask who you are, but I already know," Daryl said. "You're clearly here for the kid. Miguel. Did you know he's got a smoking problem?"

"Don't talk, because we're doing this my way," Army said in a bored voice. "You're taking us to where you're keeping Miguel. You will stand idly by as we collect him. You will stand idly by as we leave, and maybe close the door behind us. In return, we won't carve you into fucking pieces."

Daryl started genuinely laughing. It was just so ridiculous, such bravado issuing from the mouth of a skinny white girl who couldn't be more than 18. "No. I don't think so," he said, stepping closer. "See, I'm pretty handy with the crossbow right here. It ain't fast, but damn, is it powerful. One false move, and I'll rip you a new one that you can see through."

"Ooh!" Army said. "Tell me, have you always been so smooth with the ladies?"

"You'd best leave now."

"No. Give me Miguel."

"Give us Glenn," Daryl countered.

A faint look of surprise flitted across her face, though, due to the darkness, Daryl could not see it. "Seriously? You want that idiot back?"

"He's not an idiot." Once the words came out, Daryl immediately questioned them. When had his opinion of his fellow survivors changed so dramatically? When had they become people he would take a knife for?

Army giggled. "Oh, I see how it is," she said in a tone pregnant with implication.

"That's _not_ how it is!"

"Sure. Whatever." Army paused for a moment. "Okay. New deal. Care to hear it?"

"Go for it."

"Leaf and I will leave you alone, provided I have your guarantee that you bring Miguel to the hospital tomorrow for a hostage trade."

"We were going to do that anyway."

"Good. Also, promise that you'll treat Miguel respectably. Don't punch him too much. Let him have a smoke." She paused. "Don't cut off his ears."

Daryl was glad the night hid his involuntary flush. "Same goes for Glenn."

"Deal."

There was a short silence. Then, "Can I see him?" Army asked wistfully.

Daryl didn't consider himself emotional by any means. Yet her plaintive tone, stripped of pretense and achingly vulnerable, struck some chord buried deep within him, tugging at heartstrings he had thought were cut long ago. Wordlessly he hoisted himself up to the platform outside Miguel's window, and then, in a gesture that was reminiscent of a time when gallantry could be afforded, held out a hand to Army.

Miguel's eyes were closed. His head was tilted, exposing his face, which the moonlight showed to be clean of bruise or abrasion. Army pressed her hand to her face. "He's okay," she whispered, and relief wiped away her toughness to show the exhaustion underneath. The bandage wrapped around one arm shone the same silver as her pale, fragile skin.

"Yeah," Daryl said. He leaned away, scared by the sudden and unfamiliar tightness in his own throat.


End file.
